Unbeknownst to me, the Neverwinter Nights Podcast, the podcast where I had my first and so far only interview, recorded its last episode in August. While I was not a frequent listener, I am still sad to see it go. So with some melancholy in my heart, I thank Brian S. Bloom, Ben H., Mark Shook and the rest of the crew for their work (and their continued shout-outs to the xoreos project) and wish them the best of luck in their future.
If a story-driven Neverwinter Nights 2 persistent world is your thing, please have a look at their’s, Realms of Trinity, and consider supporting them. Thanks.
The Neverwinter Nights Podcast website might go offline in May 2015, so I took the liberty of mirroring the episode with my interview here. You can find the original text accompanying the interview below.
Please join Mark AKA Madmage999 and Brian AKA Sir Brian, from NWN2 Realms of Trinity, as they interview the lead developer of the Xoreos project, Sven AKA Dr. McCoy.
Neverwinter Nights Podcast Episode 192
xoreos is an ongoing FLOSS project to reimplement BioWare (and derivatives) as used in their 3D games, beginning with Neverwinter Nights. The goal is to have a portable program to play those games even on operating systems those games were never meant to be played on, such as GNU/Linux and Mac OS X.
How is it licensed?
xoreos is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later (GPLv3+).
A note about piracy
To use xoreos to run the games, you have own the original game media. We do not endorse piracy in any way, shape or form.
What does currently work?
In its current state, xoreos is still far away from its goal. At the moment, we are able to load resource archives and read basic file formats. Video and sound playing works, models are partially supported, and for earlier games, areas are shown and even some very basic gameplay exists.
What is left to do?
A lot of work is still left to do. We are actively looking for developers interested in joining our efforts in taking apart BioWare games and reimplementing them. If that sounds something you would find exciting and feel capable of, please contact us. We are always happy to see new faces. :)
The most pressing matter, however, is finding a person with knowledge of OpenGL: The current graphics subsystem is barebones and was quickly hacked together without much deeper understanding. If works for what is shown right now, but is far from being anywhere near adequate. There are a lot of features missing, and the performance is nothing to be proud of. Again, we would be very glad to welcome you in our still small team!